A blow for creativity against the media cArtel

JONATHAN TASINI

Published 5:30 am, Friday, July 6, 2001

THE U.S. Supreme Court decision in the landmark electronic rights case is a huge victory for free-lance writers, photographers and illustrators. But beyond its specific legal precedent, the ruling illuminates a wider, unrelenting war against creators of every stripe, a battle that is a threat to the survival of independent thought, our culture and freedom of expression.

Everywhere one looks, creators are under assault by the media cartel. Take free-lance writers. The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision joined by liberal and conservative justices, resoundingly ruled that publishers had been, effectively, stealing our work by selling to electronic media without our permission works we had sold them for print use. Nice racket if you can get away with it. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the solution to deal with the widespread theft was for authors and publishers to agree to enter into agreements that allowed continued electronic usage of our works in return for royalty payments.

The reaction from the industry? So far, hard-ball recriminations. Thumbing their nose at the Supreme Court, publishers are threatening to delete thousands of articles from electronic archives unless authors sign away their future rights in perpetuity and any claims to compensation for the past illegal use of our work. They didn't have to work too hard to come up with the unconscionable contracts; for the past five years, because we stood up for our rights, many of them have been bludgeoning free-lance creators to sign away their rights in perpetuity, for no additional money, for all new works.

Our fellow artists in the music business fare no better. The ante for an artist to even get in the door with a major record company is to completely sign away her rights, which she can get back after 35 years (the so-called reversion right). And that's not good enough for the record companies. Last year, they slyly slipped through a piece of congressional legislation to take away even those reversion rights. They got caught red-handed and the bill was repealed. But the message is clear: Record companies will assault their artists whenever possible.

And of course, the media cartel has taken after actors and screenwriters. Actors had to strike the advertising industry last year. Screenwriters struck a deal after harsh bargaining and a threatened strike; actors are still in negotiations with the motion picture industry. And their demands? To share more fairly in the billions of dollars in revenues they generate from the sale of their creations.

That is what has been forgotten. We create the value, not the industry executives who, by the way, are compensated quite handsomely. We are the people who are supposed to benefit from the sale of intellectual property, not AOL Time Warner and Disney. We are the energy behind the thoughts, ideas, pictures and words that flow through the minds of people in every community.

Indeed, the public should care about our struggle. If we cannot make a fair living, we cannot continue to create new works. If we do not control our works, the media cartel will decide what information the public has and at what price. So, the average person has a real, personal interest in supporting writers in a boycott or strike against a media company.

Creators should celebrate the Supreme Court victory, but not for too long. If the lesson we draw is that a majority of judges always will protect our livelihoods from the power of the marketplace, we are fools. We got lucky because the industry acted illegally, brazenly so. But the true fight is not about the law but about power. The trend is clear; the industry has united with a firm agenda to rob all creators by any means necessary.

In response, we -- actors, screenwriters, photographers, artists, illustrators and writers -- must band together and ignite a dynamic, coordinated movement that exerts power at the bargaining table, in the legislative corridors and if necessary, in the streets. If we do, they will not be able to stop us.